NOTIFYING THE DVLA

When selling your car, whether to a private individual or to a dealer, it's essential that you notify the DVLA of the change of ownership. This ensures that you're not legally connected to a car you no longer own and helps safeguard both the buyer and seller by establishing legal ownership.

The official certificate of car ownership is known as the V5C (commonly known as the log book and formerly known as the V5). When you sell your vehicle, the buyer will expect to see the car's log book to ensure that the car is officially the same as you have described it in your advertisement. This means it's vital that you locate this before selling. Most buyers will not feel comfortable about buying a car without seeing the log book. When the transaction is completed, you'll need to register the new ownership by completing the relevant sections and sending it to the DVLA. Unfortunately, there's no way of doing this online as you need to obtain two paper signatures in order to progress.

If you're unsure what your log book looks like, take a look at the images on the official DVLA website.

Remember, for the change of ownership to be official both you and the buyer must sign the log book before sending it off, so it's important to address this issue while you're handing over the vehicle.

First, turn to Section 6, entitled ‘New keeper or new name/new address details' and complete the buyer's details.

Next, turn to Section 8 and, along with your buyer, sign the declaration. Once these parts of the log book have been completed, you (as the seller) must send the log book off to the DVLA. The address is DVLA, Swansea, SA99 1BA.

You must also give the person buying your car the separate, green section of the log book (the V5C/2 section).

You complete and hand over a different section of the log book when you're selling your car to a dealer. This section is the V5C/3. You still need to get the contact details and signature of the dealer and post them to the DVLA at the same address as above. However, you do not send the log book to the DVLA, instead you hand it to the dealer along with the uncompleted V5C/2. They will be responsible for the rest.

If you've lost your log book you'll still need to notify the DVLA that you have either sold or transferred the vehicle to someone else. The easiest way to do this is to write to the DVLA informing them of the vehicle's registration number, the make and model, the date of sale or transfer and the name and address of the new owner.

Until both you and the new buyer have written to the DVLA the car will not be registered as having passed into new ownership. This means that, technically, the vehicle is still yours and you may be contacted if anything happens to the car that requires police involvement.

To claim a refund on the unused months remaining on your road tax you need to inform the DVLA that you've sold the vehicle. You can do this by filling out this form. It can be completed and submitted online, or printed off and posted to DVLA, Swansea, SA99 1AL.

Once the DVLA has received all the information necessary to switch the ownership over you'll receive a letter acknowledging that you're no longer the registered owner. This should arrive within four weeks of you informing them. If this does not happen you should contact them to check that your log book arrived safely and that your application is being processed.